Poppies

Question 1

‘Spasms of paper red.’

Answer 1

-Suggests injury to the reader and that she is considering the death of her son.
-Personifies the paper.
-Powerful emotive image; ‘spasms’ connote short severe stabs of pain, could also refer to a short life span - life expectancy of the son and soldiers in general are short.
-> ‘Spasms’ may also imply that the mother is not in control of her own life anymore as it’s been dictated by war and conflict. (Spasm is an involuntarily muscular contraction)
-Colour ‘red’ connotes blood and injury.

Question 2

‘Disrupting a blockade’

Answer 2

-‘Disrupting’ (verb) used to relate how war ‘disrupts’ family life.
-Also creates a juxtaposition, (talking about the colour RED) ; speaker may be implying that the bright red colour of the poppy connotes happiness and brightness and juxtaposes the solemn order of her son’s army uniform.
-‘Blockade’ is ambiguous; refers to both military action AND the barrier between the speaker and her son.
-> Blockade suggests that maybe the speaker feels shut out from her son’s life, and that she’s having to block her emotions.

Question 3

‘Sellotape bandaged around my hand.’

Answer 3

-‘Bandaged’: Evokes the idea of securing a wound. The wound may be both physical or emotional - physical wound for the son in war, son may be enduring physical pain, WHEREAS it is also SYMBOLIC of the emotional suffering that the speaker is going through.
-May also be a reference to maternal instincts; whenever her son was injured, she would be there, ready to comfort and console him - this is further reinforced by the possessive pronoun, ‘MY’.

Question 4

FORM

Answer 4

In the form of a dramatic monologue; emotive monologue conveys the grief that the speaker feels
Presents a different view of conflict; sacrifice of a parent.

Question 5

STRUCTURE

Answer 5

Enjambment; overflow of emotion as the speaker remembers her son’s childhood (free-flowing rhythm).
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS evokes empathy from the reader.

At the end of the poem, the speaker is still caught between past and present and wishes for her son to come back. The lack of resolution and closure suggests the inevitability of grief due to war and conflict.

Question 6

CONTEXT

Answer 6

Weir grew up in Ireland during the conflict of 1980’s, exposing her to the consequences of war on families. Perhaps a fundamental idea of the poem.

Weir uses the symbolism of poppies frequently in the poem; poppies represent the remembrance of military personnel killed in war.